Halloween is coming, and around the country pumpkins are popping up on porches, people are buying 10-lb bags of candy without being ashamed to make eye-contact with the cashier, and everyone has one thing on their minds:
Nope, unfortunately it's not delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins.
It's sluts. Or being slutty. Or not being slutty. Or trying to decide if you should be more or less slutty. Basically, when the leaves start to change and temperatures start to drop, we, as a culture, have sluttiness on the brain. Whether you are writing Facebook statuses about how stupid slutty girls' costumes are, pinning a "slut pride" button on your crop top, or just trying to decide what to wear for mandatory costume day at the office, you can't even get through all the syllables in the word
October without at least getting a slut-blur in your periphery.
Hopefully, I can do something today to help all us grrly girls (and all the people who love us) to enjoy
this year's Halloween festivities without worrying that you or someone
you love is too slutty, not slutty enough, or just right. My purpose is neither to engage in a brutal slut-shaming fest nor to start a slut-pride riot among angry women in sexy cat costumes.So, friends, grab your feminist theory tool belt and your thinking cap, because we are about to blast through a wall of patriarchy several centuries deep and explore this Halloween-induced slut-mania from the inside out.
Let's start by looking at some pictures of popular
Halloween costumes:
Did you notice any trends or patterns here? Maybe a subtle stylistic difference between the men's and women's costumes? You can say it however you want, but the ugly truth is that the slutifaction of Halloween costumes disproportionately affects women year after year after year. If you need more evidence besides these pictures (and every Halloween party you have ever attended past the age of 15), check out
Fuck No Sexist Halloween Costumes on tumblr. While men are more than capable of having valuable thoughts about this
topic and engaging with it if they want to, unlike costume-clad women, they can easily avoid it and
still dress up. Because "slutty" has become the norm for women's costumes, women who want to dress up for Halloween have no choice but to wrestle with the dilemma of slut-mania and ultimately pick a side. You can choose to don a not-revealing costume, but you are almost guaranteed to stick out just like Cady Heron at her first Halloween party with the Plastics (if you don't get this reference, please go watch
Mean Girls immediately). Femininity and feminism collide when we answer the question
What am I going to be for Halloween this year? This is EXACTLY why it is worth our time to explore the who, what, why,
and how of the Slutty Halloween phenomenon and make an informed and
empowered decision.
Even though it sucks big time, the incredibly conspicuous gender bias of the Halloween costume industry shouldn't really surprise us all that much. In fact, portraying/conceptualizing women in a hypersexualized way is one of the things that western culture does best. [Bonus: Do yourself a favor and check out
this tumblr. You won't regret it.] Halloween, however, is really the perfect time to consider the entire concept of the slut and how it used to control women's behavior, feelings about themselves, and relationship to their sexuality. Let's take advantage of this slut-crazy season and get to the bottom of what is really going on with sluts, prudes, and the society that labels us that way.
Let's start with one (not so) little question: What does 'slut' actually mean? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary,
the term 'slut' refers to a sexually promiscuous woman. For a more comprehensive explanation of the word, let's go to
Womanwords (a really incredible dictionary of words about women by Jane Mills). Mills's general definition is pretty much identical to the Merriam-Webster one, but the etymology of slut she provides is really telling:
slut entered the English language in the 14th century and referred to any person who was gross and untidy and looked sloppy. By the 16th century, it was almost exclusively used as a denigration for unchaste women, and this meaning has persisted until the modern era. In
Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, Leora Tanenbaum explains that slut doesn't always exclusively apply to one's sexual behavior- it is often a negative term used to describe a grrl's failure to conform to normative standards of femininity. You can really see how this works in her description of the connotative meaning of 'The Slut': she's low-class, wears too much make-up and too-tight clothes, she isn't as polished and refined as the 'good girls' who know how to keep their sexuality hidden away discreetly. (pg xv-xvi).
Like most socially constructed labels (especially those that apply to women), 'slut' can be defined almost more effectively by defining it's opposite- the not-slut. The not-slut is chaste, modest, willing to submit to the control of her father or husband, and definitely not ever horny. In
"Daddy Little's Girls," (an essay that epitomizes the feminist fist pump), Breanne Fahs articulates the (often implicit) cultural messages women and grrls receive about the importance of sexual purity: "Girls are taught not to want sex, wile boys are taught to have an essential sexual appetite that girls must resist." She also explains that western society and the widespread culture of chastity, "present adolescent women as victims of sexuality, interested only in penile-vaginal intercourse, and lacking in ability to negotiate sexual subjectivity and desire... We socialize young women into a framework where they cannot assert their own needs because of their inscribed passivity in early sexual exchanges...Sex for girls is portrayed as merely a byproduct of, or an avenue toward, romantic love rather than something that girls strongly desire or find appealing by itself." Day-uhm! (Like a total bad ass) Fahs certainly doesn't pull any punches when she's attacking the patriarchy. Everything in our culture tells us that good girls don't have sexual urges, don't want to get nasty unless they do it with a diamond and a gold band on their left hands, and do not have/should not want any autonomy over their own sexuality (and of course, that gross, unmarriageable sluts do).
Just in case you don't believe me or Breanna Fahs, I'm going to rely on my favorite feminist dictionary (Jane Mills's
Womanwords). The definitions and history of
nymphomania and
clitoris provide excellent (and horrifying) examples of just how present and pervasive patriarchal constructions of "appropriate femininity" and "the slut" truly are. Nymphomania was an ACTUAL MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS in the Victorian era and was defined as a "feminine disease characterized by morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire." In contrast to the relatively common diagnosis and treatment of nymphomania, satyriasis, the male equivalent in the Victoria medical lexicon, was rarely treated and male "sufferers" were often referred to in glorified terms such as "sexual athletes." Before I explain the "treatment" for nymphomania, let me pause for a moment to give you a bit of history on everyone's favorite lady part, the clitoris. In 1593, a church-sanctioned (male) witch investigator "discovered" the clitoris between the legs of an accused witch. He was so shocked by it that, in his official report, he referred to it as "the Devil's teat" and from that point on the presence of an enlarged clitoris beneath the petticoat of an accused witch was enough to conclusively convict her. Much later, during the Victorian period, male-dominated authoritative bodies (this time the medical community) once again associated the clit with something dangerous lurking within its female host. However, these learned men of science and reason didn't waste time on something as silly as witch hunts; no, they understood an enlarged clitoris as indisputable evidence of hysterical nymphomania. When a woman was diagnosed with this condition (most commonly as a result of being caught masturbating, stimulating the clit during sex, or just being horny a lot), surgeons routinely performed complete clitoridectomies (removing the entire clit). This "cured" the patient and effectively restricted her sexuality from existing outside of the procreative arena.
Gloria Steinem (feminist and all around bad-ass), offered her take on the once common diagnosis and treatment of nymphomania and tied it to more contemporary modes of sexual repression in
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions: "Nymphomania... was mainly used to condemn any woman who made more sexual demands that one man could handle... The sexually aggressive woman [of the post 1960s] is a slut... but the sexually aggressive man is just normal." It's true. The slut label seems to only apply to women. In
Gendered Lives, Julia T. Wood cites one study (Stanley, 1977) that found that there exist 220 terms to describe sexually promiscuous women, but only 22 such terms referring to men. It may seem somewhat trivial, but this shit matters, grrls. Wood explains, "Language is not neutral. It reflects cultural values and is a powerful influence on our perceptions... much of our language devalues females and femininity by trivializing, depreciating, and diminishing women and anything described as feminine." As a reflection of our cultural values, the slut label, and all its synonyms, stinks. It implicitly and insidiously tells women and men over and over again that women who express autonomous sexual desire are gross and slutty while men who do the same are normal.
The slut label is a sociolinguistic mechanism by which patriarchal norms such as the idea that women are property and that women's sexuality should be controlled and regulated by male proprietors (husbands and fathers) are both established and reinforced throughout the reigning social structure. This is particularly apparent in the definition and history of the term
chastity (once again, brought to you courtesy of the best dictionary ever,
Womanwords).
Chaste/chastity are terms that refer to someone who is pure from unlawful (meaning pre- or extra- marital) sexual intercourse and, in all its various historical and contemporary connotations, has overwhelming feminine associations. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, chastity became an "essential feminine virtue" in both religious and secular contexts, and denying a woman's chastity was widely accepted as the most serious insult against her largely because of the threat posed to patrilineal blood lines by female infidelity and the devaluation of a father or husband's lady-property if she became "tarnished." It is also interesting to note that the ONLY period in which there exists documented evidence of equivalent concern for male chastity occured between the years 1630 and 1640.
Breanne Fahs makes the connection between the historical context and the contemporary moment: "The culture of chastity encourages women to construct themselves as sexual property, becoming, in the most literal sense, the property of their fathers and husbands... When we condone the treatment of women as sexual property, we also condone the most literal terms of patriarchal culture, where the 'law of the father' reigns even at the expense of the daughter's sexual health and sexual agency." So, you see, grrls, all this slut-mania really just functions to restrict and control female sexuality and sexual behavior and ensure that we are all solidly under the control of the men who are supposed to own us.
So, if the root of the whole mythology of the slut thing is adherence to antiquated social norms, why is it so pervasive in our modern, sex-obsessed society? What an awesome question; I'm so glad you asked! One huge reason for all this slut-mania is the deep-seated social dogma that a woman's individual worth is determined by her sexual purity. This notion is inexorably connected not only to the transaction that occurred between fathers and potential husbands when women were traded for dowries, but also to the perceived sexual impurity of maids, servants, and slaves (14th- 20th century according to to
Womanwords) who frequently were used as sexual objects and abused by their employers or owners and stood as a contrast to the perceived sexual purity and superiority of the upper-class "ladies." In the 21st century, the slut label persists as a means of establishing social value and individual self worth for women. Tanenbaum offers a contemporary example in
Slut! through her assertion that in high school and middle school, sluts are the ultimate social pariahs and are frequently targets of ridicule from peers in all other social strata because their bodies and emotions are considered public property for use and abuse. The public disgust at Miley Cyrus and acceptance of Taylor Swift serve as an example from recent pop culture. I'm sure we can all come up with countless other examples of the ways in which women and girls are denied value or heralded as superior based on their perceived slutiness or lack thereof.
Another reason for the widespread acceptance of the patriarchal construct of the slut is the dominance of the culture of purity/chastity in religious messages for young people and sexual education. Because these messages are presented as facts by adults in positions of authority during formative stages in the development of sexual identity, young people often internalize them. Fahs drives this point home with her argument that the culture of purity (specifically its assumption that purity equals freedom from that which contaminates young women), "situates sexuality as dirty, sinful, and potentially polluting-
for women. This definition encourages women to construct sex as not a normal part of human existence, but as something that fundamentally corrupts them and as something that brings forth disease and contamination." We have all been brainwashed in a million tiny little ways to believe that women who are not sexually pure are dirty and irredeemably tarnished and to put the female virgin on a pedestal of pristine purity.
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| "It's an Everlast!" |
This slut thing is a real problem. A big, festering,
sinkhole of a problem that negatively affects women in every kind of way. On an
individual level, the slut-ethos, particularly the continued prevalence and
acceptance of
slut-shaming, hurts women and grrls by:
(1) fostering a fucked up relationship between women and their own sexuality, (2)
causing us grrls to internalize negative patriarchal norms regarding our sexual
feelings and behaviors, and, (3) (according to Leora Tanenbaum in
Sluts!), sends a messages to young
people that boys are free to explore and express their (heteronormative)
sexuality, while women and girls are most decidedly not. In
The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti
articulates this perfectly: “Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building
relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking
the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won’t
have sex, but rather that they’ll have it without pleasure.” Our slut-obsession,
and it’s inseparable BFF slut-shaming, tell women to be ashamed of their
sexuality, and that seeking sex and enjoying sex are shameful, inappropriate things
for women to do. With the term “slut” in its lexicon, the patriarchy doesn’t
need to work hard to keep control of women’s sexuality- it practically
restricts itself.
Slut-shaming and purity worship also lead to some very real health consequences for women and grrls who internalize these patriarchal messages and attempt to live according to these values. Breanne Fahs supports this claim with some really troubling statistics:
(1) Girls who have taken virginity/purity/chastity pledges are 1/3 less likely to use contraceptives than girls who have not once they become sexually active, largely because the majority of girls who sign such pledges do not have access to comprehensive sex education or contraceptives.
(2) Because such pledges and abstinence-based programs often imply, or even emphasize, sex as penile-vaginal intercourse, a disproportionately high number of teens who take these pledges engage in unprotected oral and anal sex because they "do not believe that these acts count as sex."
(3) Teens who take virginity/purity/chastity pledges are significantly less likely to be tested for STIs, but significantly more likely to contract oral and anal STIs.
In addition to causing some serious problems for individual
women, our cultural obsession with sluts and virgins plays a nasty, and much sneakier, role in broader society. Leora Tanenbaum
explains that slut-shaming highlights that sexism is
alive and well and that the sexual double-standard is as powerful as ever. Fahs backs up her argument and asserts that chastity culture and slut-shaming "
strip women of their sexual agency by
reinforcing the idea that patriarchal control of women’s sexuality is not only
acceptable, but desirable.” Slut-shaming,
the glorification of chastity, and all other forms of designating individual
worth according to sexuality leads to victim-blaming and
rape culture (I will talk more about
this in a future post, I pinky swear), and reinforces patriarchal norms that
denigrate and disempower women and grrls on a massive scale.
The slut label (and all the negative connotations
practically oozing off of it) both asserts and strengthens the power of patriarchal
dogma governing the female body and sexuality that, when viewed outside of
social processes, are repulsive and oppressive. Breanne Fahs
demystifies this process, describing the culture of chastity/slut-shaming as, “a
social space that normalizes the oppression of women's bodies via severe
control over the developing sexual expression, resulting not only in a
reinscription of their bodies as sexual property but also in the acceptance of
some of the most literal terms of patriarchal culture: women's bodies exchanged
between men, communities of women organized around the negation of sexual
desire, little attention to roles of mothers in the sexual socialization
process, and old-fashioned ideas about women as 'tarnished' and 'impure' when
sexually active." When we call someone (or even ourselves) a slut, we might
as well fist-bump the patriarchy because we are both playing by their rules and
proving their relevance.
This shit gets extra complicated when we start to think
about it specifically from the perspective of us girly grrls because despite
our best efforts, we always seem to need to toe the line between being
attractive enough to be feminine, but not so attractive as to stumble into the
realm of sluts. As I discussed in the previous post (“Real Women Have… Bodies”),
our society holds women to extremely high standards of feminine beauty by assigning value to us based on how satisfactorily we appease the demands of
the male gaze. When we throw the purity mandate into the mix, things get really
confusing really quickly.
Jessica Valenti explains this like a boss in one of the more
famous quotes from The Purity Myth: “What’s
the difference between venerating women for being fuckable and putting them on
a purity pedestal? In both cases, women’s worth is contingent upon their
ability to please men and to shape their sexual identities around what men
want.” This shit is ridiculous, grrls. Fahs takes this explanation to the next
level when she argues that chastity culture and specifically purity balls, “put
girls’ sexuality on display even while denying that same sexuality. [This]
promotes a variety of mixed messages, as [it] focuses on sex but never mentions
sex.” Basically, in order to remain appropriately feminine and still stay on
the “right” side of slut-divide (as defined in the patriarchal rule book),
women have no choice but to relinquish sexual autonomy to an “appropriate” male
proprietor such as a husband or father. Well, grrls, I only have one thing to
say.
Fuck that.
Grrls (and everyone else), it is OKAY to feel sexy, to look
sexy, to dress provocatively, to flirt publicly, and to have all the consensual
sex your little heart (or any other body part) desires, regardless of the
deeply-rooted patriarchal forces telling you otherwise. It’s also okay to dress
modestly, behave conservatively, and abstain from casual (or all) sex. It’s
okay to get horny. It’s okay to get yourself off. As long as you are doing what
YOU want because you want to, and not because society or the patriarchy or your pastor or girlfriend or dad or some bro at a party (or anyone else for
that matter) are telling you to, it’s a-okay, grrlfriend.
It is, however, NOT OKAY to determine your value or
social standing (or anyone else’s) based on how successfully you (or she)
conform to patriarchal constructions of femininity and female sexuality. It is
NOT okay to insult someone by calling them a slut or a whore or a prude or any
other word that denigrates women by reducing them nothing more than glorified
blow-up dolls or Bridal Barbies. Jessica Valenti challenges women to break away from these
damaging, restrictive labels and to, “start to see ourselves- and encourage
men to see us- as more than just the sum of our sexual parts; not as virgins or
whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but
as people with independent desires, hopes, and abilities.” She’s right. You are
more than that; you deserve more than that. We are better than that, and we
have to not only demand to be treated as such, but also begin to treat each
other like fully human people, worthy of respect and dignity.
So, bois and grrls and everyone in between and on either
side, this Halloween, get out there, have some fun, and stop worrying so much
about who’s a slut, who’s a prude, and who’s a patriarchy-approved woman. If
you respect yourself, respect each other, and stop thinking about women as
anything less than a complete people (and so much more than just vaginas with a
visitor’s log), the slut issue will work itself out, and the patriarchy will
lose a little more of its influence in the social structures being demolished, rebuilt, and modified with the passage of time.
